Publications related to Universality of jamming of nonspherical particles

Field-controlled multicritical behavior and emergent universality in fully frustrated quantum magnets

Phase transitions in condensed matter are a source of exotic emergent properties. We study the fully frustrated bilayer Heisenberg antiferromagnet to demonstrate that an applied magnetic field creates a previously unknown emergent criticality. The quantum ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Primary and secondary order parameters in the fully frustrated transverse-field Ising model on the square lattice

Frédéric Mila

Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations and field-theory arguments, we study the fully frustrated transversefield Ising model on the square lattice for the purpose of quantitatively relating two different order parameters to each other. We consider a "primar ...

Amer Physical Soc2024

Topological photonic transport in disordered scattering networks

Zhechen Zhang

This Ph.D. thesis unveils the unique topological phenomena occurring in such networks, focusing on the intricate interplay between their Floquet topology, the presence of disorder, and their unitary scattering at microscopic and macroscopic scales. Using t ...

EPFL2024

Eight-vertex criticality in the interacting Kitaev chain

Frédéric Mila, Natalia Chepiga

We show that including pairing and repulsion into the description of one-dimensional spinless fermions, as in the domain wall theory of commensurate melting or the interacting Kitaev chain, leads, for strong enough repulsion, to a line of critical points i ...

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2023

Critical properties of the quantum Ashkin-Teller chain with chiral perturbations

Frédéric Mila, Natalia Chepiga

We investigate the nature of the phase transitions in the quantum Ashkin-Teller chain in the presence of chiral perturbations. We locate the Lifshitz line separating a region of direct chiral transitions from the region where the transition is through an i ...

Amer Physical Soc2023

Scaling Description of Dynamical Heterogeneity and Avalanches of Relaxation in Glass-Forming Liquids

Ali Tahaei, Matthieu Wyart

We provide a theoretical description of dynamical heterogeneities in glass-forming liquids, based on the premise that relaxation occurs via local rearrangements coupled by elasticity. In our framework, the growth of the dynamical correlation length e and o ...

American Physical Society2023

A Theory of Finite-Width Neural Networks: Generalization, Scaling Laws, and the Loss Landscape

Berfin Simsek

Deep learning has achieved remarkable success in various challenging tasks such as generating images from natural language or engaging in lengthy conversations with humans. The success in practice stems from the ability to successfully train massive neural ...

EPFL2023

Universal scaling of tunable Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states across the quantum phase transition

Klaus Kern, Haonan Huang

Quantum magnetic impurities give rise to a wealth of phenomena attracting tremendous research interest in recent years. On a normal metal, magnetic impurities generate the correlation-driven Kondo effect. On a superconductor, bound states emerge inside the ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2023

Level crossings and chiral transitions in transverse-field Ising models of adatom and Rydberg chains

Ivo Aguiar Maceira

This thesis is motivated by recent experiments on systems described by extensions of the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising (TFI) model where (1) finite-size properties of Ising-ordered phases -- specifically, ground state level crossings -- were obser ...

EPFL2022

Thermal Ising Transition in the Spin-1/2 J(1)-J(2) Heisenberg Model

Frédéric Mila, Olivier Clément Romain Gauthé

Using an SU(2) invariant finite-temperature tensor network algorithm, we provide strong numerical evidence in favor of an Ising transition in the collinear phase of the spin-1/2 J(1)-J(2) Heisenberg model on the square lattice. In units of J(2), the critic ...

2022

Thermal critical points from competing singlet formations in fully frustrated bilayer antiferromagnets

Frédéric Mila, Antoine Yves Dimitri Fache

We examine the ground-state phase diagram and thermal phase transitions in a plaquettized fully frustrated bilayer spin-1/2 Heisenberg model. Based on a combined analysis from sign-problem free quantum Monte Carlo simulations, perturbation theory, and free ...

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2022

Small-angle neutron scattering study of mesoscale magnetic disordering and skyrmion phase suppression in the frustrated chiral magnet Co6.75Zn6.75Mn6.51

Henrik Moodysson Rønnow, Jonathan White

Co-Zn-Mn chiral cubic magnets display versatile magnetic skyrmion phases, including equilibrium phases stable far above and far below room temperature, and the facile creation of robust far-from-equilibrium skyrmion states. In this system, compositional di ...

INT UNION CRYSTALLOGRAPHY2022

Conformal Field Theory at the Lattice Level: Discrete Complex Analysis and Virasoro Structure

Clément Hongler

Critical statistical mechanics and Conformal Field Theory (CFT) are conjecturally connected since the seminal work of Beliavin et al. (Nucl Phys B 241(2):333-380, 1984). Both exhibit exactly solvable structures in two dimensions. A long-standing question ( ...

SPRINGER2022

Inception of Regular Valley Spacing in Fluvial Landscapes: A Linear Stability Analysis

Shashank Kumar Anand, Sara Bonetti

Incipient valley formation in mountainous landscapes is often associated with their presence at a regular spacing under diverse hydroclimatic forcings. Here we provide a formal linear stability theory for a landscape evolution model (LEM) representing the ...

2022

Distributed Fibre Optic Thermo-hygrometer for Monitoring the Concrete Curing

Luc Thévenaz, Kenny Hey Tow, Tiago Filipe Pimentel Das Neves

The moisture content in concrete is a critical parameter for most of the degradation processes such as shrinkage and cracking. In this paper, we present the first kilometre-range thermo-hygrometer for monitoring the concrete curing. ...

Optica Publishing Group2022

Kibble-Zurek exponent and chiral transition of the period-4 phase of Rydberg chains

Frédéric Mila, Natalia Chepiga

Chains of Rydberg atoms have emerged as an amazing playground to study quantum physics in 1D. Playing with inter-atomic distances and laser detuning, one can in particular explore the commensurate-incommensurate transition out of density waves through the ...

Nature Research2021

A quantum magnetic analogue to the critical point of water

Mohamed Zayed, Ludger Weber, Frédéric Mila, Bruce Normand, Henrik Moodysson Rønnow, Julio Antonio Larrea Jiménez, Kazimierz Conder, Ellen Fogh, Christian Rüegg

At the liquid-gas phase transition in water, the density has a discontinuity at atmospheric pressure; however, the line of these first-order transitions defined by increasing the applied pressure terminates at the critical point(1), a concept ubiquitous in ...

2021

Lifshitz point at commensurate melting of chains of Rydberg atoms

Frédéric Mila, Natalia Chepiga

The recent investigation of chains of Rydberg atoms has brought back the problem of commensurateincommensurate transitions into the focus of current research. In two-dimensional classical systems or in one-dimensional quantum systems, the commensurate melt ...

2021

Critical values in an anisotropic percolation on $\mathbb{Z}^2$

Hao Xue

In this thesis, we consider an anisotropic finite-range bond percolation model on

\mathbb{Z}^2

. On each horizontal layer

\{(x,i):x\in\mathbb{Z}\}

for

i\in\mathbb{Z}

, we have edges

\langle(x,i),(y,i)\rangle

for

1\leq|x-y|\leq N

with $N\in\mathbb{N ...

EPFL2021

Unified analysis of topological defects in 2D systems of active and passive disks

Ignacio Pagonabarraga Mora, Pasquale Digregorio

We provide a comprehensive quantitative analysis of localized and extended topological defects in the steady state of 2D passive and active repulsive Brownian disk systems. We show that, both in and out-of-equilibrium, the passage from the solid to the hex ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2021